The Legend of Korra kicked off it’s third season last night with a 3 episode premiere. How did it fare?

Full spoilers ahead!

Season three picks up shortly after where the last season ended, and immediately has Korra dealing with the aftermath in Republic City left by her defeat of Unavaatu from the end of season two. This places her at odds with the leadership of Republic City as they expect her to deal with it. In the midst of the this, we are shown that Bumi, friend of Korra and Tenzin, inadvertently discovers he can airbend. This soon leads to the revelation that airbenders are starting to pop up all over, which soon prompts Korra and Tenzin to lead an expedition to rebuild airbenders and the airbending temple, naturally with all their friends and family in tow.

By the climax of the third episode, they’ve made it all the way to Ba Sing Se, the capital of the Earth Kingdom, which was one of the main locations from the original Avatar series. In this city we’re also introduced to Mako and Bolin’s family, as they begin to learn about their parents they had lost many years before. This final episode of the premiere was titled “Earth Queen”, and comes to fruition when we’re shown that the Queen of Ba Sing Se is collecting anyone with airbending abilities and forcing them into her own army of airbenders. Running through out the three episodes is the breakout of an arrested bender, and the formation of an apparent group of notorious benders, which sparks a response from none other than former Prince Zuko.

While the opening episodes set the groundwork for an interesting third season, the strength of The Legend of Korra, in my opinion, as always been found in the great characters of the show, as well as the outstanding action sequences, and as usual, it doesn’t disappoint. All our favorite characters are back, and we learn a surprising amount about each of them in the three short episodes – Mako and Bolin get into more trouble, Korra and Asami grow to become better friends, and Tenzin is his typical cynical self. Even Zuko makes an appearance, his first in Korra. While only a handful of action scenes pop up, when they do, they are in the brilliant stylized fighting that we’ve grown accustomed to with some great bending from Korra and a few cool acrobatic martial arts moves from Asami.

Season three jumps straight into a fresh plot line for the season and has me really excited to see where the rest of it goes, making the first episode’s title – “Breath of Fresh Air” – very fitting.